so that they permitted him to enter his bastard in his own name in the register of the citizens of his tribe.

A little after, he himself was infected with the pestilence. Being extremely ill and ready to breathe his last, the principal citizens, and such of his friends as had not forsaken him, discoursing together in his bed chamber about his rare merit, they ran over his exploits, and computed the number of his victories; for whilst he was generalissimo of the Athenians, he had erected for the glory of their city nine trophies, in memory of as many battles gained by him. They did not imagine that Pericles heard what they were saying, because he seemed to have lost his senses; but it was far otherwise, for not a single word of their discourse had escaped him; when, breaking suddenly from his silence, "I am surprised," says he, “that you should treasure up so well in your memories, "and extol so highly a series of actions, in which fortune had "so great a share, and which are common to me with so many "other generals, and at the same time should forget the most "glorious circumstance in my life, I mean, my never having "caused a single citizen to put on mourning." Excellent words! which very few in high stations can declare with truth. The Athenians were deeply afflicted at his death.

The reader has doubtless observed, from what has been said of Pericles, that in him were united most qualities which constitute the great man; as those of the admiral, by his great skill in naval affairs; of the great captain, by his conquests and victories; of the high-treasurer, by the excellent order in which he put the finances; of the great politician, by the extent and justness of his views, by his eloquence in public deliberations, and by the dexterity and address with which he transacted the affairs; of a minister of state, by the methods he employed to increase trade and promote the arts in general; in fine, of father of his country, by the happiness he procured to every individual, and which he always had in view, as the true scope and end of his administration.

But I must not omit another characteristic which was peculiar to him. He acted with so much wisdom, moderation, disinterestedness, and zeal for the public good; he discovered in all things so great a superiority of talents, and gave so exalted an idea of his experience, capacity, and integrity, that he acquired the confidence of all the Athenians, and fixed in his own favour, during 40 years that he governed the Athenians, their natural fickleness and inconstancy. He suppressed that jealousy which an extreme fondness for liberty had

made them entertain against all citizens distinguished by their merit and great authority. But the most surprising circumstance is, he gained this great ascendant merely by persuasion, without employing force, mean artifices, or any of those arts which a mean politician excuses in himself, upon the specious pretence, that the necessity of the public affairs and reasons of state make them necessary.

Anaxagoras died the same year as Pericles. Plutarch relates a circumstance concerning him, which happened some time before, which must not be omitted. He says, that this philosopher, who had voluntarily reduced himself to excessive poverty, in order that he might have the greater leisure to pursue his studies, finding himself neglected in his old age by Pericles, who, in the multiplicity of the public affairs, had not always time to think of him, wrapped his cloak about his headt, and threw himself on the ground, in the fixed resolu lution to starve himself. Pericles hearing of this accidentally, ran with the utmost haste to the philosopher's house in the deepest affliction. He conjured him, in the strongest and most moving terms, not to throw his life away; adding, that it was not Anaxagoras, but himself that was to be lamented, if he was so unfortunate as to lose so wise and faithful a friend; one who was so capable of giving him wholesome counsels with regard to the pressing occasions of the state. Anaxagoras then, uncovering his head a little, spoke thus to him: "Pericles, "those who use a lamp take care to feed it with oil." This was a gentle, and at the same time a strong and piercing reproach. Pericles ought to have supplied his wants unasked. Many lamps are extinguished in this manner in a country by the criminal negligence of those who ought to supply them.

SECTION III.

THE LACEDÆMONIANS BESIEGE

PLATEA.-FOURTH

AND FIFTH YEARS OF THE WAR.

THE most memorable transaction of the following years was the siege of Platea by the Lacedæmonians. This was one of the most famous sieges in antiquity, on account of the vigor

162.

*Plut. in Pericl. p. 10

It was the custom for thofe to cover their heads with their cloaks who were reduced to despair, and refolved to die.

A. M. 3576. Ant. J. C. 426. Thucyd 1. ii. p. 147-151. Diod. xxii. p. 102-109.

ous efforts of both parties; but especially for the glorious resistance made by the besieged, and their bold and industrious stratagem, by which several of them got out of the city, and by that means escaped the fury of the enemy. The Lacedæ. monians besieged this place in the beginning of the third campaign. As soon as they had pitched their camp round the city, in order to lay waste the places adjacent to it, the Platæans sent some deputies to Archidamus, who commanded on that occasion, to represent that he could not attack them with the least shadow of justice, because, that, after the famous battle of Platea, Pausanias, the Grecian general, offering up a sacrifice in their city to Jupiter the Deliverer, in presence of all the allies, had given them their freedom to reward their valour and zeal; and therefore, that they ought not to be disturbed in the enjoyment of their liberties, since it had been granted them by a Lacedæmonian. Archidamus answered, that their demand would be very reasonable, had they not joined with the Athenians, the professed enemies to the liberty of Greece; but that if they would disengage themselves from their present alliance, or at least remain neuter, they then should be left in the full enjoyment of their privileges. The deputies replied, that they could not possibly come to any agreement without first sending to Athens, whither their wives and their children were retired. The Lacedæmonians permitted them to send thither, when the Athenians promising solemnly to succour them to the utmost of their power, the Platæans resolved to suffer the last extremities rather than surrender; and accordingly they informed the Lacedæmonians from their walls that they could not comply with what was desired.

Archidamus then, after calling upon the gods to witness that he did not first infringe the alliance, and was not the cause of the calamities which might befal the Platæ ans for having refused the just and reasonable conditions offered them, prepared for the siege. He surrounded the city with a cir cumvallation of trees, which were laid long-ways, very close together, with their boughs interwoven, and turned towards the city, to prevent any person from going out of it. He afterwards threw up a platform to set the batteries on, in hopes that as so many hands were employed, they should soon take the city. He therefore caused trees to be felled on mount Githæ ron, and interwove them with fascines, in order to support the terra on all sides; he then threw in wood, earth and stones, in a word, whatever could help to fill it up. The whole army worked night and day, without the least inter

mission, during seventy days; one half of the soldiers reposing themselves whilst the rest were at work.

The besieged observing that the work began to rise, they threw up a wooden wall upon the walls of the city opposite to the platform, in order that they might always out-top the besiegers, and filled the hollow of this wooden wall with the bricks they took from the rubbish of the neighbouring houses; so that the wall of timber served in a manner as a defence to keep the wall from falling as it was carrying up. It was covered on the outside with hides both raw and dry, in order to shelter the works and the workmen from the fires discharged against it. In proportion as it rose, the platform was raised also, which in this manner was carried to a great height. But the besieged made a hole in the opposite wall, in order to carry off the earth that sustained the platform; which the besiegers perceiving, they put large panniers filled with mortar in the place of the earth which had been removed, because these could not be so easily carried off. The besieged, therefore, finding their first stratagem defeated, made a mine under ground as far as the platform, in order to shelter themselves, and to remove from it the earth and other materials of which it was composed, and which they gave from hand to hand, as far as the city. The besiegers were a considerable time without perceiving this, till at last they found that their work did not go forward, and that the more earth they laid on, the weaker it grew. But the besieged judging that the superi ority of numbers would at length prevail, without amusing themselves any longer at this work, or carrying the wall higher on the side towards the battery, they contented themselves with building another within, in the form of a half-moon, both ends of which joined to the wall, in order that the besieged might retire behind it when the first wall should be forced, and so oblige the enemy to make fresh works.

In the mean time, the besiegers having set up their machines, doubtless after they had filled up the ditch, though Thucydides dees not say this, shook the city-wall in a very terrible manner, which, though it alarmed the citizens very much, did not however discourage them. They employed every art that fortification could suggest against the enemy's batteries. They prevented the effect of the battering-rams by ropes * which turned aside their strokes. They also em

* The end downward of these ropes formed a variety of slip-knots, with which they catched the head of the battering-ram, which they raised up by the help of the machine.

ployed another artifice: The two ends of a great beam were made fast by long iron chains to two large pieces of timber, supported at due distance upon the wall, in the nature of a balance; so that whenever the enemy played their machine, the besieged lifted up this beam, and let it fall back on the head of the battering ram, which quite deadened its force, and consequently made it of no effect.

The besiegers finding the attack did not go on successfully, and that a new wall was raised against their platform, despair. ed of being able to storm the place, and therefore changed the siege into a blockade. However, they first endeavoured to set fire to it, imagining that the town might easily be burnt down as it was so small, whenever a strong wind should rise; for they imployed all the artifices imaginable to make them selves masters of it as soon as possible, and with little expence. They therefore threw fascines into the intervals between the walls of the city and the intrenchment with which they had surrounded them, and filled these intervals in a very little time because of the multitude of hands employed by them, in order to set fire at the same time to different parts of the city. They then lighted the fire with pitch and sulphur, which in a moment made such a prodigious blaze, that the like was never seen. This invention was very near carrying the city, which had baffled all others; for the besieged could not make head at once against the fire and the enemy in several parts of the town; and had the weather favoured the be. siegers, as they flattered themselves it would, it had certainly been taken; but history informs us that an exceeding heavy rain fell, which extinguished the fire.

This last effort of the besiegers having been defeated as successfully as all the rest, they now turned the siege into a blockade, and surrounded the city with a brick wall, strengthened on each side with a deep fosse. The whole army was engaged successively in this work, and when it was finished, they left a guard over half of it, the Boeotians offering to guard the rest; upon which the Lacedæmonians returned to Sparta about the month of October. There were now in Platea but 400 inhabitants, and 80 Athenians, with 110 women to dress their victuals, and no other person, whether freeman or slave; all the rest having been sent to Athens before the siege.

During the campaign some engagements were fought both by sea and land, which I omit, because of no importance.